Your life is art. Every word and every action you take is a brush stroke on this empty canvas called life. Whatever it has to be for you will be. No one leaves it empty. The image of your life work is only in your mind and only you can bring it to life. Your choices determine your destiny. Choose well. As for others, we only see an image of you that you’ve created through the power bestowed upon you by your creator.
Please remember this; YOU ARE A MASTERPIECE and the only original piece of you we have on this planet. Please take care. You are precious. Don’t carry yourself like a duplicate. Never accept anyone’s reference of you as a fake because you know who you are. Think well, talk good and do best.
When all is said and done, let every one of us who see what you do, appreciate and be awed at your artistry(your words and your deeds). And when the time comes that you’ll be long gone, let everyone know that a master painter once lived, by the work you leave behind. As for now, PAINT YOUR BEST. Make it Colourful.
As earlier announced, at some point last month, I lost all my website content that I had worked for, about a decade’s worth of work. Then after sometime, a friend helped me recover everything. I then promised to repost some of the articles that I had written with time. Here below is one of the articles.
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I spent half of last night trying hard to create an empty space. Let me explain.
My blog and every other blog that I know of is built from a template. The blog is set in such a way that every post and every page created comes with the basic settings and the extras that are on the template. So you will find widgets and links on every page that you visit whether you want them or not in that specific instance. Of course the links and widgets are great as they help with navigation through the blog. This is very, very, useful generally. But these extras could not be needed at times though they are there.
Last night was one of these instances. I am in the process of creating something of which I do not wish to be linked to the current content of my blog, yet I need it to be under my existing domain name. Therefore, I found myself in the need of creating content from a completely blank page on my blog with no single link or widget to the rest of the pages. Having not done it before, it took me hours of learning, applying, failing, retrying on and on in order to remove the template’s links and widgets from the single page. Finally just when I was about to keep it off for another day, I found the right way to do it and whoa….. I now had a completely blank page before me. And I WAS SMILING.
And I stayed in that position, staring at the empty screen for several minutes with a grin. What would you think if you saw someone staring at a blank page smiling? (I was fortunate that my wife was fast asleep by this time).
Personally two thoughts were in my mind. The challenge that I have just overcome and the readiness to work on my new idea. These made me glad.
If you looked at me at that instance smiling at an empty space, you wouldn’t read these thoughts and hence could be left wondering or doubting my sanity. Since you were not there, let’s do this;
I want us to look at that setting from 3 different positions.
Position #1 : You as The Observer When you look at others, do not be quick to judge a person by his present state. You don’t know where he is coming from or where he is destined for. Do not judge. Especially if you see him smiling at the empty spaces in their own life. We have people who don’t seem to have anything of substance before them, but please know that they have come a long way to be where they are. That’s why they can afford a smile in their empty space. You may not know the struggles and challenges they’ve been through or are going through presently. Some of us smile on our way to emptiness. The joy of overcoming and the hope of the coming puts a smile on his/her face looking and thinking about their empty space. As an observer, believe in the good of others and expect the better for them.
Position #2 : You as The Doer
Anything that you’ve been through in life has always been an addition. Even when you find yourself at a non intended empty space. The struggles that you go through will produce something. If they don’t, they have added to your experience. It all works for the good. As the doer, whether you intentionally or unintentionally find yourself there, remind yourself where you are coming from and where you are going and smile at the empty space.
Position #3 : You as The Empty Space
We have to know that there is a higher power than us. We also have to know that at times, He takes away from us what we consider useful in order that He can place in us what He knows is better and greater. And we also have to know and continually believe that He who began a good work in us is faithful to bring it to completion. This way, you can afford to smile at your emptiness. Leave it to God and pray that it will all work out to His perfect will.
As for now, just share this post with all your friends. You could be that angel who has been sent to fill someone’s empty space with a smile. God bless you.
Let me share with you a poem that I love. It is one that reminds you that you have the potential to achieve anything that you may dream of, because you are a human being. A complete person like all the others who achieve their dreams. You’ve got all it takes. Go for it. Here is the poem;
Figure it out for yourself, my lad, You’ve all that the greatest of men have had, Two arms, two hands, two legs, two eyes, And a brain to use if you would be wise. With this equipment they all began, So start for the top and say “I can.”
Look them over, the wise and great, They take their food from a common plate And similar knives and forks they use, With similar laces they tie their shoes, The world considers them brave and smart. But you’ve all they had when they made their start.
You can triumph and come to skill, You can be great if only you will, You’re well equipped for what fight you choose, You have legs and arms and a brain to use, And the man who has risen, great deeds to do Began his life with no more than you.
You are the handicap you must face, You are the one who must choose your place, You must say where you want to go. How much you will study the truth to know, God has equipped you for life, But He Lets you decide what you want to be.
Courage must come from the soul within, The man must furnish the will to win, So figure it out for yourself, my lad, You were born with all that the great have had, With your equipment they all began. Get hold of yourself, and say: “I can.” – Poem by Edgar A. Guest –
I hope that you have enjoyed it. Now go and achieve your dream. Because you can.
A few weeks ago, I lost everything I had worked for on my website. If you hadn’t known about that, go check how I made a BIG mistake. We all make mistakes and that was one. It took me quite some time before I could accept the fate. I tried every possible means I knew of to recover it but they all proved fruitless. Over time, I slowly reminded myself that life goes on despite any unexpected circumstances. One of the things that gave me consolation and the confidence to keep going was the fact that I had just released the Achieve Your Dream workbook. I wasn’t going to start from zero after all. In fact, I now had two books to my name. At this point, I just put them on the homepage of my new website so that any visitor wouldn’t land on a blank page. Then I continued rebuilding one page at a time. Am still doing so. That’s how you build anything. Even the skyscrapers. They are built one brick at a time.
Two days ago, Kostas called me. He had wanted to get my first book for quite sometime but it hadn’t happened because there had not been a perfect timing for us to meet. He had always insisted that he wants to take the book from the author’s hands with his own two hands. On this call he sounded urgent. I guess that since he realised a second book had now been published and he has only two hands, the idea was that this should be the right time and we should not wait any longer for a third book before he got these two. He always has an interesting perspective on just about everything.
On this particular day, the stars aligned. Two hours from the call, we were sitting together having a very inspiring conversation. He was inspiring me with his words and I guess I was inspiring him too with mine. You see, on this journey of life that’s what we are commissioned to do.
“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,not giving up meeting together………” -Hebrews 10:24-).
We were sharing about our wins, our future goals and looking for options to better our best. There is always room for improvement. They say it’s the biggest room in the world.
Suddenly, I don’t know how the idea of losses found way into our conversation. I rarely talk about my losses. I hereby found myself doing so. Passionately describing to him the event that led to the loss of my website content. It seemed like Kostas was actually enjoying this mournful moment from Anthony. I knew he was enjoying it, because he was wryly smiling as I was talking. Until I stopped talking. Then he shot a question at me – “Do you have data?”
“Yes I do.”
“Give me your phone.” He said.
I handed him my phone reluctantly.
“What’s your domain?”
“anthonymuiruri.com” – Doesn’t he know it all this while?
In approximately ten seconds, he types on the phone and hands it back to me. “Here’s your website.”
“Whaaaattt?” I exclaim with my mouth wide open. Right there before my own eyes, on the screen of my own phone lay my website just as it was before the mishap. Only that now it was on a different default domain.
“Don’t you know that the internet has an archive of every web activity that ever happens? You can always retrieve anything about a website from any time of its history.”
“Hmmmm! That’s comforting as well as scary.” I responded to him, imagining of the good this brings to anyone who finds himself at a position like I was and finds a solution that seemed impossible, but also imagining the fright it will give anyone else who could wish to conceal a past online, only to realise that they can’t. It will always be out there somewhere. Waiting for someone who has the interest and the know-how to retrieve it.
Anyway, I now had what I had been wishing and praying for. To have access to my old content that had been compiled over several years.
“Thank you Lord.” I will now be reusing them on this new blog, one article at a time as earlier mentioned. Stay tuned and please let me know what you’d be interested in reading from me along the way.
After I was through doing my small victory dance, my mind shifted to you. I prayed for you. Yes you, who is reading this post.
I prayed that you may recover in your own life that precious thing which you may have lost and given up hope on. God is able to restore it in a way you may not imagine. He holds the past as well as the future. Trust Him for any situation, position, relation, condition or possession that you may have lost. He is the solution. Sometimes he may have to use another person to fulfil His mission. Just like He used Kostas. I now pray that you may find joy in this assurance. Can somebody say amen?
At this point I want to ask you of two things.
One: Help me say a prayer for Kostas. Pray that God may do exceedingly, abundantly beyond what Kostas may be thinking or imagining. He is a very kindhearted friend to anyone close to him. May God repay him in kind.
Two: Share this article with a friend or two or with everyone everywhere, to remind them that there can always be hope in their hopeless situation as long as they are still breathing.
With that, I hereby finish by praying that you may have a beautiful day.
Last week, I took an action that cost me ten years worth of work.
That day that I chose to change my website admin email address.
I have been using blogger for the last ten years or so for my website. Being a Google platform, I had used Gmail to sign up on it. At some point it occurred to me that I could use an email of my own domain to run it and this was the day to do it. As I added my new admin email, it gave me the option to switch between the two. So I added my domain email, removed my Gmail and clicked on save. The next minute, I couldn’t login to my website using either of the emails. The website was still there but I couldn’t edit anything on it. However, as I had long contemplated moving it to WordPress which I have since been experimenting with, this could be the sign to do it immediately, or so I thought. In a short while, I had transferred the domain to WordPress and put up a homepage with the intention of copying the articles over. The assumption was that my original blog would still be there as it would automatically revert to the blogger default domain. I have never been so wrong. As soon as the transfer process was complete, I literally had no trace of a website online. Ten years of work gone. Just like that. I am now here starting from scratch. This is my first article on my new site.
Have you ever lost in such a big way?
How did you recover? Please tell us in the comments.
As for me, it didn’t worry me quite. I was reminded of the fact that many times in life we lose something we value so much, in order that it may give space to something bigger and better, of more value. I have so many stories to this effect. I want to believe that this is the case here as I begin building this new website. I pray it is the same with you on anything valuable you may have lost. If undergoing a loss of any kind at present, may you recover and exceed your wildest imaginations.
The idea is to keep the faith and keep moving. Be persistent on the path to your chosen destination until you arrive.
If you have a dream to achieve, persistence is a vital ingredient that will lead you to success. By the way, this is one of the ingredients I discuss in my new manual, the Achieve Your Dream workbook. Please check it out. It contains seven ingredients that I discuss and help you apply to the success of your big dream. Wishing you great success. Go for it.
